Dinos get Beatdown, return as a Horde

Orion: Dino Beatdown, by Spiral Game Studios, has been re-released as Orion: Dino Horde. Spiral would like everyone to forget the low review scores and technical issues that plagued the game when it was first released in May 2012 and give it a shot in its relaunched state. In fact, Spiral calls Horde a sequel to Beatdown even though it’s essentially the same game, but with more polished animations, new weapons and dinosaurs, and the addition of an in-game microtransaction store. Owners of Beatdown got the update for free.

All is not rosy however. Beatdown, besides getting panned by reviewers, was plagued with controversy due to allegations that the developer had stolen assets from Natural Selection 2 as well as laying off team members to avoid paying them. The Horde update has been similarly mired in upset amid accusations that Spiral was trying to manipulate Metacritic score of Beatdown by classifying Horde as a new game. Spiral’s head David Prassel has even been accused of using too heavy a hand in moderating Steam forums by locking and deleting insulting threads. Of course, the new addition of an in-game store has not endeared him to the few fans he had.